General Strategies to Discourage GAI Use

Educate students about ethical GAI use / Shift Mindset from Policing to Empowering

Sometimes instructors use extrinsic threats and punishments to try and persuade students not to cheat; this may or may not include using AI detectors to catch students.  The large language models (LLMS) and GAI tools are changing so fast that the AI detectors struggle to keep up with them, let alone they are known to be biased and inaccurate.  We could spend all of our time plugging student work into detectors or we could take time to reconnect with our students, our policies, and meaningful learning.  

• Ensure students all have a general understanding of what you mean by GAI.  Feel free to use/edit this slide to help introduce GAI to your students. 
• Engaging students in a clear policy.  Its not just about you having a policy but ensuring that students have the same understanding of your policy is crucial to its success.  Click here to learn more about policy development and implementation.  
• Provide statements/indicator on each assignment:  Students are taking 4-5 classes at a time and each class likely has a different GAI policy.  By adding a quick indicator or description on each assignment regarding GAI use, you can help students remember what the specific policy is for that assignment in your course.  You can click here to see an example of a GAI scale that you can use.

Appeal to Students Through Deeper Meaning

A transparent purpose of an assignment can improve student learning (insert research).  Student motivation for completing an assignment improves when it is perceived as more relevant to the student.  This relevance could be a connection to their real life/daily life, their career/job, or their opinion/belief.  Allowing students to embrace the personal and have their voice heard can motivate them to complete the assignment without GAI's support.  Connecting it back to ethical GAI use and the larger concerns with GAI may also be helpful.  

• Purpose Strategy:  Add a "why this matters" to the assignment.  For example:  “By doing this, you will practice [skill x], which is used in [insert profession], and this prepares you for the [upcoming exam/project] by doing [task y]
  • Connect with a necessary skill development
  • Wanting students to share/find their voice / artistic representations
  • Help students to see how they can draw on their strengths to be successful at the assignment
• Relevance Strategy:  Ask students to write one paragraph or record an audio/video clip of them explaining how a concept from the assignment relates to a [insert class discussion/specific resource/personal experience/etc.], or how it applies to a specific career goal. 
• Ethical-Association Strategy:  Remind and share with students how GAI output can be wrong and is innately bias.  You could also mention the sustainability issues related to GAI, privacy and copyright concerns.  To learn more about these ethical concerns and how GAI supports and hinders learning, click here to watch this short video.  

Design for Integrity

There are many reasons why students use GAI.  While some knowingly use it when its not permitted, others may be unaware how they are using a tool (they didn't realize was enhanced with GAI) was inappropriate.  Other reasons students use GAI are related to their fear of failure, need to turn something in at a deadline and/or not knowing where to start or what the final product could/should look like.  The strategies in this section are intended to lesson those pressures more generally, therefore decreasing the likelihood of students using GAI on the assignment.  

• Clarification Time Strategy:  When students receive assignments, have designated time during class for students to ask questions as a class.  Also invite students to come to your office student hours with any further questions.  Remind students its better to get clarification rather than do something not knowing if they are on the right track.  
• Stakes Strategy:  Ensure that that a significant portion of the grade is based on the process (drafts, reflections, peer feedback, etc.).  Scaffold by setting deadlines for parts of the project to ensure steady progress.  For example:  make ¼ of the points associated with a pitch, self-evaluation of the assignment or annotated bibliography due 2 weeks earlier.
• Pressure Strategy:  Consider giving every student one “slip day” per semester they can use on any assignment or allows students to turn in assignments within 24 hours of the deadline without consequences.  Implement a 48-hr grace period where students can earn a maximum of a B+ on the assignment, reducing the “all or nothing” panic.  Have students make a plan/timeline for completing to assignment and have them turn in reflections related to how they are doing with regards to that timeline or respond to prompts like “What are two things I will do this week (by [date]) to begin working on this assignment?” or “If I am not able to complete this assignment on time, what options will I discuss with my instructor (choosing a late submission date, choosing to submit part of the assignment on time, other options that work for your course)?”
• Criteria Strategy:  Share a past anonymized student’s work or GAI generated work with comments on why it earned full credit.  Have students critique a mediocre example you designed (with or without GAI) using a rubric and discuss what could be done to improve the example.

Looking for more?  

Feel free to email ctl@kent.edu for a consultation or check out the other assignment strategies related to GAI.  

• Redesign Strategies:  These suggests are aligned with making assignments more AI-resistance and fall within two main categories, (re)focusing students on the process rather than the product, and adding friction points making using GAI more work than its worth.  
• Strategies to Integrate GAI into Assignments:  You may not want your students to use GAI so here you will find examples of how you integrate GAI into your assignments to help students gain more critical thinking/evaluation skills.